Can smart phones detect a heart attack?

Each week, we spotlight a cool innovation recommended by some of the industry's top tech writers. This week's pick is a new way of detecting a heart attack.

Your Alexa or even your smartphone could soon recognize signs that you’re having a heart attack, said Dalvin Brown at USA Today. Researchers at the University of Washington "found that around half of people experiencing a heart attack made sounds known as agonal breathing." The noise is distinctive enough that the researchers believe it can be detected by "a wide array of smart devices, including Amazon Alexa, an iPhone 5s, and Samsung Galaxy S4."

They’ve developed an artificial-intelligence tool for that purpose and are working on software that "could be baked into smart speakers or smartphones" that could listen for the sound of a heart attack and automatically alert medical personnel. The researchers acknowledged that more work and research will need to be done before the technology can be commercialized.

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